The Iron Sole Alchemist and Magical Girl Sloth
by Howlin the Werewolf
Summary: After using the Gate of Truth to travel between worlds, Sloth, Greed, and Loki come to a world that just might be too much for them to handle. There, a magical creature offers Sloth the chance to undo the horrible events of her past, but the price isn't clear until the contract has been sealed.
1. Chapter 1: A New Magical Girl is Born

The Iron Sole Alchemist and Magical Girl Sloth (Chapter 1) A New Magical Girl is Born  
by Howlin  
(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to any of the universes, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Sloth, and Loki as my own creation. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

* * *

Note:  
This story is an immediate sequel to The Iron Sole Alchemist goes to Hogwarts, which is itself a sequel to The Iron Sole Alchemist. Those stories introduce characters, events, and concepts. You may not understand everything if you have not read the previous stories.  
As a timeline note for the Madoka Magicka portion of this crossover, this takes place in a world set before the events of the series. I may, at some point, address the consequences of Madoka's wish for the events that follow, but all events in this story are before Homura's time travel and Madoka's wish.

* * *

A blue transmutation circle drew itself on an empty street. Once complete, it raised off the ground revealing myself, Sloth, and Loki. We glanced around at the enormous skyscrapers covered in windows and the clean, clear streets. Sloth and I wore our default black outfits, but used our human appearances for the moment. Each of us had a shoulder bag containing everything we expected to need when exploring this new universe.

"I'd say that was our best landing yet," said Sloth. "No one was around to see us, we didn't emerge into a top secret facility and have to explain ourselves. We're even far enough off to the side of the street that if a car was coming, we wouldn't get hit."

Loki sniffed the air of this new world. I dropped my bag and walked a few feet down the street. Once I was out of range of the red stones in my bag, I stomped my right foot hard. The square of concrete sidewalk I stepped on glowed blue and a short pillar of concrete rose up from the sidewalk to the height of my waist. Another stomp and the sidewalk was returned to its original state with another burst of blue alchemic light.

"Our powers seem to be working normally," I said as I retrieved my bag.

"So, what's our first step?" asked Sloth.

"We should try to find a library," I said, looking both ways down the street. "It'll be easier to blend in once we know what's common knowledge in this world."

One direction being as good as another, we started walking down the street. The first people we saw looked afraid of us and crossed the street to avoid us. On a hunch, Sloth and I stepped into an alley and used our shape shifting powers to alter the appearance of our clothing. The black leather showing off our oroboros marks was replaced by blue jeans and a turtleneck sweater for me and an outfit of shorts and t-shirt for sloth, mimicking the clothing style of the first people we'd seen.

It worked, and the next people we saw made no move to back away and directed us toward a library when asked. I noticed a lot of unusual hair and eye colors as the three of us made our way through the crowds. Tonks' preferred bubble gum pink hair wouldn't have raised an eyebrow in this world. In fact, I was pretty sure I saw a girl with that as her eye color.

The library didn't allow dogs, so I took a seat on a nearby bench with Loki while Sloth went inside. I leaned back and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my face. I took my silver pocket watch out and set it to the local time using a nearby clock mounted on a lamp post. Making note of the time, I snapped the watch shut and waited.

Half an hour later, I flipped my watch back open. Looking at the mirror affixed to the lid, I said, "Sloth." A moment later, her face appeared in the mirror.

"How's the research going?" I asked.

"There's some new stuff on computers and a few physics ideas I haven't heard of before, but otherwise nothing that would have been out of place in a muggle library in the last world," replied Sloth.

"So, they don't know about magic or alchemy?" I asked.

"Or automail. I checked," added Sloth.

"No way to tell if someone's covering it up here," I mused.

"I just finished assimilating all the new stuff," said Sloth. "I'll come out and give you an imprint."

Sloth's face vanished from the communication mirror and I snapped my watch shut. A minute later, the short, brown haired, blue eyed girl exited the library and sat down on the bench next to me. She clapped and placed a palm in the center of my chest, where my oroboros mark was hidden beneath my clothes. In an instant, knowledge of this world's science flashed into my mind.

"What do you think, Greed?" asked Sloth.

"Well, this is definitely the most advanced world yet in terms of particle physics, astrophysics, chemistry, and computer science," I said. "That information's pretty valuable on its own. I say we get a place to stay, poke around a bit to see if there's something like the Ministry of Magic hiding things here, and pick up some more science books to take home."

"How long do you want to give poking around?" asked Sloth.

I shrugged. "Maybe a week? If we don't find anything in that time, either it isn't here or it's hiding so well we won't find it."

* * *

Selling gold at an appropriate shop got Sloth and I plenty of local money. Finding a hotel willing to allow pets and overlook our lack of identification was a little harder, but in any world, having unlimited funds made things much easier. That night, I noted that this world's stars were different from those in our world. The planets I could observe with my brass telescope were the same, but there were more and brighter stars in parts of the sky I was used to being empty.

Sloth took Loki for a walk around town to check for any signs of magical creatures hiding among the human population while I studied at the library. The astronomy and astrophysics texts I looked through suggested this was a far younger universe than I'd previously arrived in. That raised questions, since the heavier elements that made up this solar system shouldn't have had time to form based on the models of star formation I was used to.

While I was comparing cosmology models in an effort to make some sense of this, Sloth's voice came from my pocket saying, "Greed." I took out my pocket watch and flipped it open, revealing Sloth's face reflected in the communication mirror.

"What's up?" I asked.

"There's definitely something hiding here," said Sloth. "Something just tried to read my mind."

"Where are you?" I asked, getting to my feet.

"I'm down an alley a couple blocks north of the hotel. I- Oh. I think I found it." She was looking away from the mirror.

"I'll be right there," I promised, rushing out of the library.

I didn't have far to travel. When I got there, Sloth was staring at an empty space near a dumpster and Loki was looking around confused. Turning to look at me, Sloth said, "He can't talk so he was trying to communicate with me using telepathy."

"Is he... still here?" I asked.

Turning to stare at the same spot, Sloth reported, "He says normal people can't see him."

"Is this like the thestrals?" I asked.

"I think so," replied Sloth.

"Hm... Let me try something," I said, taking the false eye that had belonged to Alistor Moody out of my bag. My right eye shriveled in its socket and disappeared, and I inserted the magical prosthetic. The electric blue eye, looking unnatural in my socket before it started moving independently, swiveled to follow Sloth's gaze.

The powerful enchantments laid on the eye allowed its wearer to see through solid matter, and penetrated even the most potent forms of invisibility. Through it, I made out the features of the creature telepathically communicating with Sloth.

It was a quadruped, covered in white fur. Its hind legs were longer than its front, like a rabbit's, and it had a long, fluffy tail that swished to and fro. A red, outlined egg pattern was in the center of its back. The creature had an almost perfectly oval head with an unmoving, catlike mouth. Red, pupil less eyes were open wide enough to be perfect circles. It had what appeared to be pointed, catlike ears, but extending out from them, draping nearly to the ground, were a pair of tentacles. Each of those tentacles was ornamented by three round, red jewels near the hand like terminus, and a single gold ring that seemed to hover halfway down the tentacle.

"Can you see me now?" came a cheerful, high pitched voice at the outermost layer of my occlumency barriers.

"I can," I deliberately thought back.

"Wait, why can I hear Greed?" came Sloth's thoughts.

"I'm acting as a relay," replied the creature. "Neat trick, right?"

"Okay, so who are you?" I thought to the creature.

"My name is Kyubey."

"Do you know why I can see you and Greed can't?" asked Sloth.

"It's because he isn't a candidate," replied Kyubey. "You can help me, though. I'd like you to make a contract with me and become a magical girl."

"What's a magical girl?" asked Sloth.

"It works like this," said Kyubey. "I will grant you one wish. In exchange, your Soul Gem is created. But if you have a Soul Gem, it will be your duty to fight witches."

"Fight witches?" I protested. "Some of our best friends are witches."

Kyubey tilted his head and said, "I'm not sure who or what your friends are, but the witches I'm talking about are magical beings born of curses that spread anger, depression, hatred, and misery."

"Okay, so not the same sort of witches we know," said Sloth. "What's a Soul Gem?"

"A Soul Gem is the proof that you are a magical girl and the source of your powers," explained Kyubey.

"And," Sloth began. There was a hesitant tone in her thoughts. "This wish. What are the limits on that?"

"I can grant any miracle, no matter how impossible," replied Kyubey. "If there's a wish you would risk your life for, I can make it come true."

"Risk your life?" I asked.

"Witches are very dangerous," said Kyubey in his same cheerful tone. "Part of why I'm so eager to make a contract with you is that the magical girls that used to patrol this territory fell recently, and as a result, the witches have been breeding out of control."

"Well, that's not an offer you get every day," thought Sloth. "I think I need more information before I commit to anything."

"Of course," replied Kyubey. "It's one of my duties to provide important information to magical girls."

"Can you tell us more about these witches?" asked Sloth. "Maybe show us one? I'm not going to commit to fighting them until I'm convinced fighting them is the right thing to do."

"Ordinarily, a witch would be very difficult to find without a Soul Gem," said Kyubey, "but since there are so many in the area, I might be able to help you find one without contracting. Witches are dangerous, though. Ordinary humans don't stand a chance against them."

"Good thing we aren't ordinary humans, then," I replied. "We can hold our own in a fight if it comes to that."

* * *

Kyubey led us along train tracks, through red light districts, near hospitals, and along the edge of tall buildings. Finally, in a narrow alleyway, a circular disk of light appeared in front of us. There was a butterfly in the center and a ring of unknown runes along the edge. Kyubey stepped through and Sloth, Loki, and I followed.

We were no longer in the alley. There were superficial similarities to the alley we'd left, including tall buildings on all sides flanked by winding fire escapes, but the space around us was wider, and the buildings enclosed us on all four sides. There was no sign of the passage we'd entered through.

"Be careful," said Kyubey. "We're inside the witch's labyrinth. Witches use them to hide inside and draw in humans to prey upon. The witch will be in the center."

"Which way is that?" I asked.

"There's no way to tell," said Kyubey. "Each labyrinth is unique, so the only way to find the witch is to explore. As a general rule, though, labyrinths most resemble the place in the normal world where they form at the farthest edges. The center, where the witch lives, is usually nothing like the part of the normal world you entered from."

"Follow the weirdness," said Sloth nodding. "Got it."

At that moment, a number of incredibly strange creatures emerged from doorways set at landings on the fire escapes. They resembled six foot tall balls of cotton with thick, black mustaches. Butterfly wings were attached to small stems that extended down from their bodies. They way they moved was unsettling. It felt like my eyes were playing tricks on me. They seemed to jerk from one position to the next in short jumps like bad stop motion.

"What are those?" asked Sloth aloud.

"Familiars," replied Kyubey in our minds. "They serve the witch."

The familiars quickly surrounded our party. Then each one produced a tendril, ending in an oversized pair of metal scissors. Lashing out, two of the familiars attacked, closing the metal sheers around my and Sloth's bodies. The metal broke as they closed. The grey tone of the Ultimate Shield was visible through the resulting tears in the fabric of our clothing.

"I'd say that was a deliberate, unprovoked attempt on our lives," I said to Sloth, a smirk on my lips.

"I would agree, Greed," replied Sloth, returning my smirk with one of her own. "Shall we respond in kind?"

The grey discoloration of our skin spread to areas of our bodies not covered by clothing as our bodies were encased in diamond hard armor. I brought my foot down and transmuted a nest of spikes from the concrete sidewalk to impale a group of three familiars. Their bodies broke apart into constituent particles upon their deaths. Sloth clapped and gripped the ladder of one of the fire escapes. The ladder came away, and she wrapped it around a pair of familiars. Then, with a simple transmutation, she caused the ladder to squeeze until the two familiars likewise broke apart.

Loki growled and glowed blue as he transformed from a brown dog into a massive, green scaled, gold maned chimera. His transformation complete, Loki pounced on one of the familiars, digging his fore claws and teeth into what passed for flesh and raked his hind claws, gutting the creature until it too disintegrated.

Loki's armored scales, strong enough to protect him from a tank shell, proved a more than adequate defense against the huge metal sheers the familiars wielded. Each familiar that tried to attack him became his next target. Sloth and I managed to thin out their numbers with basic alchemy until they were all dead.

"The environment is made of normal matter, but the familiars aren't," observed Sloth.

"That might only be true near the edge of the labyrinth," I pointed out. "The floor and walls look a lot less normal through here."

I led our party toward a door that led to an area which looked to have been carpeted in green crayon, which I'd seen thanks to the Mad Eye not being hindered by opaque, solid matter. The arrays on the soles of my shoes, originally designed to ensure I could grip on any surface, weren't providing their traditional benefit, suggesting the floor was made of something other than ordinary matter.

There wasn't anything behind some walls, and some doorways opened to a different space than would be accessed by breaking through a wall and going around them. It was easy to see why Kyubey called this place a labyrinth. Even with the advantages of my magic eye, navigating this place wasn't easy.

Difficult as it was, we navigated the non-euclidean space until we emerged into a large garden. I wasn't sure what I was looking at for a moment. More familiars were here surrounding a larger creature. The creature resembled the familiars, only it stood twenty feet tall, and instead of a cotton ball with a mustache, this thing's head was a carpet of green with red splotches that I finally realized added up to a crude crayon drawing of a rose bush.

"That's the witch," said Kyubey.

Sloth stepped forward, withdrawing the Ultimate Shield from her head so she could address the witch with human features. "Hello. We came here because we wanted to talk to you. Your familiars attacked us and we had to defend ourselves, but we came here to hear your side of the story. Kyubey says you're a monster. If that isn't true, we don't have to fight."

I wasn't fully aware of how it happened, but a vine had wrapped itself around one leg of each member of our party while Sloth was talking to the creature. Kyubey slipped free, but the rest of us were jerked upward. Demonstrating a degree of intelligence, the witch tried to bash Sloth and I into one another. Our diamond hard skin wouldn't be harmed by the sheers the witch or her familiars carried.

Our powers were just as much a mystery to the witch as its powers were to us. When Sloth and I would have been struck together, Sloth used her Ultimate Escape to allow us to pass harmlessly through one another. Loki bit the vine holding him aloft and twisted to land on one of the familiars. I used my shape shifting powers to draw a flame alchemy array on the back of my hand and snapped.

An explosion centered on the witch went off, and its head proved just as susceptible to fire as a real rose bush. An inhuman shriek of what I assumed to be pain accompanied the witch writhing in what looked like agony. As its body vanished like its familiars had, the environment around us wavered and shifted. Without warning, Sloth, Loki, Kyubey, and I were back in the alley where this all started.

A few feet away, a peculiar object was falling. It was about the size of a golf ball. Intricate black metalwork formed a spherical cage around a dark jewel. From one end, a needle protruded, and on the opposite, a stylized butterfly protruded. In contrast to everything I knew about weight distribution, the object landed point first and remained upright.

"What's this?" asked Sloth as we all resumed our normal appearances.

"That is called a Grief Seed," explained Kyubey. "It's like a witch's egg. When you defeat a witch, it might drop a Grief Seed. It isn't dangerous. In fact, it will be very useful to you after you make a contract and become a magical girl."

Sloth picked up the object and examined it. "Useful how?"

"Well, do you remember how I told you a Soul Gen is the source of a magical girl's powers? Using magic causes your Soul Gem to darken. A Grief Seed lets you draw off the taint and allows your Soul Gen to shine again."

"I see," said Sloth, pocketing the Grief Seed. "You've given me a lot to think about. Can I sleep on it before giving you my answer?"

"Of course," said Kyubey, cheerfully. "It's against the rules for me to force you, no matter how much I might want to."

"You'll have your answer in the morning," said Sloth. "We'll meet you back here."

* * *

Back at the hotel, we closed the door and Sloth crossed the room, doing a little twirl as she turned to face me. She was beaming when she said, "This is why the Gate brought us here."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"It sends us where we want to go," said Sloth. "When that nuclear scientist wanted to go to a world without alchemy, he went there. When Envy wanted to chase after Hohenheim, that worked too. We wanted to explore someplace interesting where our powers worked and we ended up in the Ministry of Magic."

"And here?" I asked, not because I didn't suspect her answer.

"Any miracle, no matter how impossible," repeated Sloth. "I can finally do what we couldn't do with the Resurrection Stone. I can wipe my slate clean and bring back all those people I killed."

"Is that worth staying here and fighting witches to you?" I asked.

"If anything, that makes it better," said Sloth. "I get to spend time saving people from monsters and making a real, positive difference."

"It's only one wish," I said. "If you're serious about this, think carefully about what you want to ask for."

"I know," she said, looking at the Grief Seed contemplatively. "That's part of why I asked to sleep on it. My first thought was just to wish everyone I've killed back to life. Then I thought, maybe it would be better to wish back everyone my father was responsible for, since that would cover everyone I killed under his orders and a lot of other people besides."

"Maybe you should wish for the power to bring people back to life," I suggested.

"Or maybe we could get more broad," said Sloth. "Wish for the power to restore people to perfect physical and mental health, regardless of their condition, whether they're living or dead."

"Ooh, nice one," I said. "That'd let you heal Neville's parents too. Maybe add something about not needing a body, since there won't be any remains from people that were made into red stones."

"Greed," Sloth said, pausing, "do you think doing this is the right thing?"

"I think you shouldn't feel obligated to contract," I said. "You aren't responsible for those deaths. But if you're sure this is something you want to do, I'll support your decision."

"Thanks, Greed," replied Sloth.

"I have to admit, I'm a little jealous," I said. "You're going to get new powers and I don't even get the option."

The rest of the night was spent working our way through different wordings and expansions of her basic wish, making sure we had all our bases covered. We added a stipulation for people like Moody, so people who didn't want to come back wouldn't have to. No point cruelly yanking people out of a pleasant afterlife.

* * *

We found Kyubey in the alley the next day waiting for us. Sloth explained her wish to him.

"Can you do it?" she asked at length.

"Of course," said Kyubey. "Is this the wish that will make your Soul Gem shine?"

Sloth took a deep breath and said, "Yes, this is my wish."

Kyubey extended the tentacles protruding out of his ears toward Sloth's chest, and a brilliant light surrounded her. Sloth was levitated into the air and her clothing vanished. The oroboros mark on her back vanished, leaving unblemished skin. Finally, the light drew together, coalescing into a red crystal the size of an egg. Gold wire flashed into existence and wrapped around the crystal protectively, forming an intricate pattern. The gold form ed a flat bottom and sculpted a flamel at the top.

Sloth landed on the ground, and the newly forged Soul Gem landed in front of her. She looked up at it and reached out, delicately touching the crystal.

Looking down at her body, Sloth said, "I'm... I'm human."

"You're a magical girl," Kyubey corrected her.

I pulled a cloak out of my bag and draped it over Sloth. "How do you feel?" I asked.

"I'm not a homunculus anymore," said Sloth. "I didn't expect this to effect that."

"Is something wrong?" asked Kyubey.

"You didn't mention any changes to my body," Sloth said. "I can't shape shift or pass through matter anymore. And I'll bet my regeneration is gone too."

Sloth clapped then touched the ground. Nothing happened. "And what did you do to my soul?" she demanded.

"What do you mean?" asked Kyubey. "It's right there."

He'd indicated Sloth's Soul Gem. From the name, I should have guessed something like this was involved.

"I relocated your soul into your Soul Gem as a safety measure," explained Kyubey. "You've seen how dangerous witches can be. By moving your soul into a smaller, more easily protected container, you'll be able to survive and reccover from even the most severe injuries. As long as your Soul Gem is intact, you can keep fighting even after losing every drop of blood by just repairing your body with magic."

"You should have told us about that," I said.

"Why are humans so concerned about what kind of containers their souls are in?" asked Kyubey.

"Hocrux," said sloth, looking at the gem in her hand. "Does this mean if my Soul Gem is destroyed, my soul is too?"

"Yes," replied Kyubey. "That's why it's very important to protect it."

Sloth sighed. "You still should have told us, but what's done is done. How do I use my powers?"

"Every magical girl is different," said Kyubey. "Magical girls have unique abilities based on their wishes, but there are some commonalities. First off, you need your Soul Gem to use magic. Unless you're transformed, you'll need to be holding it when you use your powers."

"What do you mean, transformed?" asked Sloth.

"Well, the changes to your body mean you're a lot stronger, faster, and more durable than a normal human," explained Kyubey. "You can use your Soul Gem to summon a battle outfit that not only increases those abilities even farther, but lets you use your magic more freely."

"Let me try that," said Sloth. "At least then I won't have to be naked for the rest of this explanation."

Sloth stood up and held her Soul Gem out in front of her. Red light shone brightly, and strings of red light wrapped themselves around her body. Flaring for an instant, the red glow around her vanished, and revealed she had been covered in a black catsuit. Light gathered around her neck, and a crimson cloak with a black flamel drawn on the back sprouted on her body. She leaned her head back and the hood fell away. The Soul Gem vanished and a crown of white flowers grew around her head. Filling with red light, the petals fell away, revealing a golden circlet with a large round gem on the front center that glowed just like her Soul Gem had.

Sloth felt the material of her cloak, then dug around in her bag for her pocket watch so she could look at herself in the mirror. As we were in an alley, I clapped and touched a dumpster, then pulled a newly transmuted full length mirror out of it.

"This looks pretty bad ass," said Sloth, looking herself over. "Is this my Soul Gem in the crown?"

"Yes," confirmed Kyubey.

Sloth nodded, then hopped lightly on her toes for a moment before leaping to the top of the five story building we were standing next to. She hopped back down, her cape flowing around her and she landed lightly, bending her knees slightly with the impact, with no sign of injury. She was smiling.

"Okay, it looks like I didn't get completely screwed over on the deal," said Sloth. "I was hoping to just add these powers to the ones I already had, but I can live with this. As long as this next part works."

Extending her palm forward and splaying her fingers out, red light gathered in her palm. In a burst of red light, a little girl identical to Sloth appeared. She looked around confused, blinking her big, blue eyes.

"Who awe you?" asked the newly resurrected Nina Tucker of the magical girl who looked just like her.

"My name is Sloth," she said. "It's an honor to finally meet you, Nina."

"Look in the mirror!" I told Sloth, urgently. She did so and saw the gem on her circlet had darkened immensely, to the point that only a few glimmers of crimson were visible near the top, the rest of her gem drowned in inky black.

Sloth took out the Grief Seed, held it out to Kyubey and asked, "How do I use this?"

"Just hold it up close to your Soul Gem," instructed Kyubey.

Doing so, the black substance that nearly filled her Soul Gem was drawn into the Grief Seed, leaving her Soul Gem shining as brightly as ever.

"It looks like bringing back the dead uses up most of your power," I said. "You should make sure you're topped off before you use that power."

Sloth nodded, then looked at Kyubey and asked, "Can I keep using this Grief Seed?"

"There is a finite amount of corruption they can absorb," replied Kyubey. "I'd say the one you've got is good for one more use."

"All I need for now," said Sloth. Then she revived Nina's mother.

"How did I get here?" asked the woman.

"She's magic!" exclaimed Nina, pointing at Sloth.

"Mrs. Tucker," said Sloth. "I know this will come as a surprise, but this is your daughter Nina."

"Nina?" she asked uncertainly.

"Mommy!" exclaimed the girl, leaping into the woman's arms.

"Who are you?" asked Mrs. Tucker.

"I'm someone who thinks you both deserve a second chance at life," said Sloth. "Greed,can you get them home?"

"I'm not going to just leave you alone here," I said.

"Show back up the same moment you left, then," said Sloth with a smirk. Then, more seriously, "This isn't their world and I don't want them stranded here."

"It's okay. I'll take it from here," said a second me stepping into the alley with his watch out. I nodded to him, gathered the newly revived close, clapped, and guided them through the Gate.

Once we arrived back in Liore, and I used my time turner to return with them to the same moment I left this world, I provided a brief explanation and suggested they get on a train back to central or they could stay in Liore for a little while and learn more about what had happened to them when Edward and Alphonse Elric arrived back in town after their expedition looking for magical creatures. I stayed only long enough to provide a brief explanation to Rose, then entered the Gate again to help Sloth through her transition.

"They made it home safely," I said once my past self had left.

"I'm glad," said Sloth. She tapped the Grief Seed to her Soul Gem once again, and the Grief Seed seemed to glow with the gathered darkness.

"Now it's dangerous," said Kyubey. "If it absorbs any more grief, the witch will revive. Give it to me."

Sloth offered the object to Kyubey, who balanced it on his nose for a moment. Then, a trap door opened up on his back. Apparently, the red, egg shaped markings were a seam. He flipped the Grief Seed into the opening, then the trap door on his back closed.

"What did you just do?" I asked.

"Disposal of filled Grief Seeds is one of my many duties," he replied.

"At this rate, I'll be working off my debt for a while," said Sloth. "Taking out the serial killers and other people I don't want to revive, I'm going to need about a dozen Grief Seeds to bring back the innocent people I killed.

"You started on two people who's deaths you had no part in," I said.

"You knew I wasn't going to leave them dead," she said. "Whether it happened at the start or the end shouldn't matter, really."

"Just pointing out this isn't all about clearing your slate," I said with a smile. "Since we're here for the long haul, we can't keep living out of hotel rooms. What do you say we find a place to set up a lab?"

* * *

A new underground lab was easy to transmute. Kyubey was left outside while Sloth, Loki, and I climbed down. After I transmuted her a new set of clothes out of some old Hogwarts robes, she ended her transformation and got dressed. I set up the planters for the philosopher's flowers and set up the red water feeder. We'd need to learn more before we could say how safe exposing Sloth to red water was now.

Back on the surface, I stomped and the tunnel leading to the lab vanished. Sloth was holding her egg shaped Soul Gem in one hand. Loki couldn't detect Kyubey, but he loyally followed us as we conversed with the catlike creature telepathically.

"A witch leaves behind a magical signature like a trail that your Soul Gem can detect," explained Kyubey. "When it pulses, it's picked up a witch's trail."

It wasn't long before Sloth's Soul Gem picked up the trail, and we followed it to a set of train tracks. A man dressed in a business suit was lying down on the tracks. He didn't stir when a loud whistle blared from a train coming down the tracks.

I hopped down, grabbed the man, and hopped out of hte way of the train, then laid him down for the others to examine. Kyubey pointed out a faintly luminescent mark on his neck that Sloth could see, but my normal eye couldn't detect. Kyubey called the mark a witch's kiss, and explained they formed when a person has fallen under a witch's power. Effected humans are then compelled to kill themselves or someone else.

Sloth held her Soul Gem in the palm of her hand and it glowed red for an instant. The red light burned away the witch's kiss and revived the man.

"What happened?" asked the man. "I-I laid down on the tracks. Why did do that? IF you hadn't come along..."

"It's all right," said Sloth. "You should go home."

When the man left, Sloth held up her Soul Gem again and said, "This way." She led us a short distance until a black and white disk of light appeared in midair. We stepped into the labyrinth.

Once inside, Sloth transformed into her magical girl battle outfit, I donned the Ultimate Shield, and Loki transformed into his chimera form. The labyrinth's entrance was a set of crisscrossing train tracks leading off in different directions. Looking off into the distance, along one of the tracks, the tracks gave way to black and white checkered tiles. That was the direction the witch would be in, so we headed that way.

"You should summon your weapon," suggested Kyubey. "There's no way of knowing when the familiars will decide to attack."

Sloth held out her hand, and in a flash of red light, she was holding an object. She stared at it incredulously.

"A yo-yo?" she asked. "Did I do something wrong?"

Before Kyubey could answer, a snakelike creature made of shadow lashed out from a hidden position, camouflaged against one of the black tiles. Sloth threw the red yo-yo at the creature, and the impact crushed its skull, causing the creature to disintegrate.

Flicking her wrist, Sloth returned the yo-yo to her hand and said, "I guess I didn't do anything wrong."

"Was that a familiar?" I asked.

"That's right," said Kyubey. "I'd suggest staying on the white tiles so there'll be some warning if more strike."

As we progressed, the white tiles became smaller and the contrast in the environment grew stronger. Soon, the ground was completely black, the sky completely white, and our own bodies dark enough to blend in with the ground. Only at that point did the familiars risk attacking again. A dozen trickles of red blood broke up the visual monotony and were the only way of seeing where the familiars had attacked Loki and Sloth.

Not overly reliant on his sense of sight, Loki crushed a familiar in his powerful jaws and brought a heavy clawed paw down on a second. Sloth threw her yo-yo half a dozen times, killing a like number of familiars who'd bit into her legs. The odd lighting conditions aside, it was clear that nothing more than superficial damage had been done.

To address the possibility of more familiars lying in wait, I snapped my fingers and employed flame alchemy to firebomb the area except that immediately surrounding our party. The alchemically induced flames shone stark white in this area, and we could see dozens of familiars along our path obliterated before the flames died and we moved on.

A perfectly black, humanoid figure was kneeling ahead. As we approached, black spines protruded from its back and extended at us fast as if they'd been shot from a gun. I was thrown backward as the sharpened points struck the Ultimate Shield. Sloth and Loki were impaled in a dozen places each. A pained yelp came from Loki.

Sloth gave a grunt of pain and threw her yo-yo at what I now suspected was the main body of the witch. I drew my wand and extended a blade from the end. The usually blue alchemic light shone stark white here, and I used it to cut the vine like tentacles that impaled Loki.

More fines impaled themselves into Sloth's body, but she just reeled her weapon back in and kept striking. "Get Loki healed, Greed," grunted Sloth through the pain of her own injuries. "I've got this witch right where I want her."

As I banished my blade and pointed my wand at Loki to close his wounds, Sloth swung her yo-yo in a wide arc over her head and wrapped the string around the witch's neck. Gripping with both hands, she pulled and the head was severed. That didn't kill the witch, though. Instead, a dozen more fines sprouted from the neck and shot through Sloth's body. More vines lashed out toward me and Loki, and I had to shield him with my body.

Once Loki was healed, I ordered him to stay back out of range. Then I reignited the blade on my wand and leapt at the witch. I severed the vines impaling Sloth and caught her as she fell. Rings of crimson light appeared over the wounds and healthy flesh vas visible for an instant before disappearing into the darkness of this place.

"Thanks for the assist," said Sloth, getting back to her feet. "If you can keep those vines off me for a bit, I think I can finish this."

"I think I can manage that," I said, then stood in front of her, my blade held in a defensive pose. As vines lashed out at us, I parried them, severing each one cleanly.

Sloth threw her yo-yo up in the air, once, twice, then shot it down with enough force that it was spinning like a car tire peeling out. Rather than slow, the rotation increased in speed and she began walking it forward. Chunks of the witch started flying in every direction on contact with the rapidly spinning weapon. Shrieks of pain from the witch accompanied renewed vigor in its attempts to kill us, but my defense was up to the task.

Finally, the remains of the witch's body were still, the labyrinth dissolved around us, and a Grief Seed fell to the ground. Now no longer subject to the unnatural lighting conditions, I could more readily assess the damage. None of the vines had actually penetrated Loki's scales. The attacks had all slipped between them. His carbon hardened bones had redirected the impaling vines away from anything vital, and the repairs I did during the battle were basically all he needed.

Sloth's body was uninjured, but the multiple holes in her bodysuit showed exactly where she'd been run through. Her hear, lungs, liver, intestines, and stomach had all been penetrated, some of them multiple times. A lot of blood had run down her chin from choking and vomiting it up during the battle.

"Well, it looks like I do have regeneration still," said Sloth.

"Because your wish was for the power to heal, your own body heals much faster and more efficiently than other magical girls," said Kyubey.

Looking over her shredded outfit, Sloth asked, "Is there some way to fix this?"

"It gets created new every time you transform," explained Kyubey.

"I see," said Sloth, nodding. Then she ended the transformation. The damaged scraps of cloth disappeared and were replaced by the shorts, sandals, and t-shirt she'd been wearing earlier. "Bonus. Apparently the stuff I was wearing stays safe while I'm transformed."

She eyed her Soul Gem. There was some corruption visible, but not enough to dim it significantly. The level of magic she used in that fight wouldn't use up her magic if she did it twice a day for a week.

"Can I make a request?" I asked. "Can we save up Grief Seeds until you've got enough to bring back all the people you want in one batch? I'd rather not make a fresh trip every time you revive someone."

"That seems reasonable," said Sloth. "I think we should call it quits on witch hunting for the day. What do you say we get something to eat and talk some more?"

"I'm okay with that," I said. "Are you hungry?"

"No," admitted Sloth. "Will I get hungry?"

"Your body's processes are being sustained by your magic now," said Kyubey. "You can eat if you want to, but it's not really necessary."

"How about sleep?" asked Sloth as we walked down the street looking for a restaurant.

"The same," said Kyubey. "It's a luxury, not a necessity for magical girls."

"Will I age?" asked Sloth.

"That's a very interesting question," said Kyubey. "You see, generally magical girl candidates are human females in their second stage of growth. Your apparent age is well below the normal, but your behavior doesn't seem to match your apparent age. How old were you when you made your contract?"

"That's a complicated question," said Sloth. "I was an artificial human created to replace the little girl you saw me bring back to life. I have her memories. I spent a couple of years as a brainwashed slave before Greed set me free. After that, it was a couple years working on that rescue mission, then seven years at Hogwarts with a little bit of time travel thrown in."

"That would explain the anomaly," said Kyubey, cheerfully as we sat down at an outdoor noodle shop. "The selection process is based on emotional age rather than physical development."

"Why teenagers?" I asked.

"We've found magical potential is at its highest in girls of about that age as a general rule. In answer to your original question, no. Your body won't continue to age, though if you wanted, you could use your magic to make whatever changes you want to it."

One advantage of communicating telepathically was we didn't need to stop talking as we slurped our noodles. "I get the feeling there are a lot of powers I haven't tapped yet," thought Sloth.

"It'll come with time and experience," said Kyubey. "You're already doing very well. Incidentally, you don't need to keep your Soul Gem out like that. It can turn into a ring for convenience."

Holding up her Soul Gem, the gold wrapped crystal glowed and shrunk down into a small silver ring around her middle finger with a tiny inlaid red gem. I noticed that the fingernail of that finger had a crimson flamel symbol seemingly painted in the middle of it. Sloth didn't seem surprised as she admired the ring, suggesting it'd been like that since becoming a magical girl. I just hadn't noticed until now.

"None of this really looks like the magic we learned in school," I said as we left the noodle stand to head back to the lab.

"It isn't," confirmed Sloth. "Just like with witches, it looks like a different thing with the same name."

"Is this other kind of magic you studied what you use to fight with?" asked Kyubey.

"No," I said. "Neither one of us could do any kind of magic before the contract. I use alchemy."

"I wasn't aware humans had abilities like that," admitted Kyubey. "Where exactly do you come from?"

"A parallel universe," explained Sloth. "Remember when Greed took the people I resurrected through that portal? That's where he was bringing them."

"Fascinating," said Kyubey. "The only way we've previously been able to observe alternate timelines is when a magical girl makes a wish to alter the past. And even then, it's usually only an indirect observation."

"It took a lot of practice learning to travel between worlds safely," I said. "If I weren't immortal, I never would've survived the learning process."

"Okay, Kyubey," said Sloth. "We're going to head down into the lab for the night. We'll meet you back up here for a fresh witch hunt in the morning."

I took Sloth's hand and Loki's collar and used the transmutation circle tattooed on the back of my shoulder to pass us through the solid matter of the street and enter the sealed underground lab.

* * *

Author's comments:  
Experience in combat, tools from other worlds, and abilities foreign to this world, our heroes are more prepared to face the life of a magical girl than most. Whether that is going to be enough is another question altogether.


	2. Chapter 3: The Seat of Consciousness

The Iron Sole Alchemist and Magical Girl Sloth (Chapter 3) The Seat of Consciousness  
by Howlin  
(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to any of the universes, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Sloth, and Loki as my own creation. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

* * *

The next day, we found Kyubey waiting for us as we emerged from our lab. Sloth converted her Soul Gem from ring to orb form and we set out. Rather than follow Kyubey's original search pattern, Sloth led us to the shopping district.

"I need to get some new clothes," said Sloth as we arrived. "I figured I'd keep an eye out for a trail on the way, but I'd rather not be stuck with just one outfit now that I can't just make my clothes change at will anymore."

After gathering a large pile of clothes, Sloth headed into the changing room to try them on. While I waited outside with Kyubey, I silently thought a question to him.

"Sloth told me her sense of pain has been numbed. The injuries she took in that last fight didn't hurt as much as they should. Is that normal?"

"Of course," said Kyubey. "Pain can be incapacitating in combat, and you could easily end up killed if you're too focused on how much the last attack hurt to defend against the next one."

"So this is a deliberate feature?" I verified.

"Since the seat of a magical girl's consciousness is inside her Soul Gem, all of her sensory inputs can be throttled. With a little practice, she can adjust that throttling at will. We set the default level of pain throttling lower than it is for a normal human. If she wants, she can turn off the pain entirely in battle, but reaction time suffers in that state, so I don't recommend it."

"That's good to know," said Sloth, stepping out of the dressing room in a blue, pleated skirt, short sleeved, white, button up blouse and knee socks. "I was worried it might mean the connection to my body was breaking down."

"You heard that?" I asked.

"While there is a range limit, my telepathy isn't limited to being in the same room." explained Kyubey.

Sloth modeled a dozen more new outfits before we left the store, carrying several large bags. On the way back to the lab to drop off the new clothing, Sloth's Soul Gem picked up a trace of residual magic. We immediately changed course to follow the trail, stuffing the shopping bags into my shoulder bag that was bigger on the inside as soon as we were out of sight of the public.

The trail led us to an apartment block. I could make out a smell of improperly ventilated chemistry going on. Sloth leapt up to a third story landing on the fire escape and climbed in through an open window. I whistled to Loki who hopped up in my arms and I leapt to the landing after Sloth.

Sloth was standing over a man and woman, both dirty and unkempt, lying unconscious next to a card table and pair of folding chairs. Both were illuminated by the crimson glow of Sloth's Soul Gem. Quickly inventorying the collection of medicines and cleaning products on the counter next to a burnt saucepan on the stove, I concluded they'd been inexpertly trying to produce drugs.

"I think they overdosed," said Sloth. "I cleared the kiss off them and healed them both. If we'd gotten here much later..."

Sloth's Soul Gem was at about two thirds its maximum brightness. She turned slowly on the spot, holding out her Soul Gem like a compass, then opened the bathroom door. I turned off the stove and followed sloth into the glowing disk of light just inside the door.

The area we entered into was like the bathroom would have looked, but oddly stretched out, and with no ceiling, only a vast, white expanse. It would have been hard to tell the difference between that uniform, white expanse and a ceiling without my magic eye. As we were getting our bearings, a black snake, like the familiars of the last witch darted out of the bathtub.

Unhindered by the odd light conditions in that labyrinth, we had plenty of time to react, with Loki transforming in a flash of light and biting it in two. The area wavered as the creature dissolved, leaving the three of us back in the real bathroom. Loki reverted back into a brown dog.

"I don't see a Grief Seed," said Sloth, looking around.

"That's because the barrier was created by a familiar, not a witch," said Kyubey, standing just outside the bathroom door.

"Barrier?" I asked.

"A more generic term for the pocket dimension witches and familiars use to hide in," clarified Kyubey. "Familiars are much less powerful, and the barriers they create are much simpler than the labyrinth of a witch."

"You've got a bad habit of waiting until the last minute to tell us things, Kyubey," I said. "Do familiars often go on missions away from their witch?"

"It isn't really a mission," said Kyubey. "Sometimes a familiar slips a witch's control or gets separated by some other means. They form their own barriers and attack humans. Once it successfully kills enough humans, four or five usually does it, the familiar matures into a copy of the witch that created it."

"So, when you say they've been breading out of control, this is what you were talking about," said Sloth. "At least one familiars are easy to take out. Should make exterminating this area a little easier at least."

"We should go before the couple wakes up," I suggested.

Heading out, we decided to resume our patrol in earnest rather than continue back to the lab. Sloth set a goal of eliminating one witch a day and any familiars we came across in the hopes of thinning out the creatures in the area

* * *

After an hour of patrolling, Sloth picked up a trail. We followed it to a warehouse and entered the barrier. Sloth, Loki, and I all transformed once inside the labyrinth. The familiars that surrounded us shortly upon entering were the same mustached cotton balls with butterfly wings from our first labyrinth.

"Greed, duck!" ordered Sloth.

I dropped prone. She summoned her yo-yo and swung it over her head ina wide arc. An aura of red light surrounded the yo-yo, streaking a comet-like tail behind it. It shot through the heads of the familiars forming a circle around us, and the familiars disintegrated.

"That's a nice trick," I said, getting to my feet.

"Only works when they're kind enough to line up like that," said Sloth, blushing slightly. "Let's go see what we can do about the witch."

"This way," I said, directing us through the distorted space and alien landscapes until we emerged into a garden room with an identical rose bush headed witch to the first one we defeated.

Keeping an eye on our feet after what happened last time we fought this witch, I noticed a number of tiny familiars I'd missed the first time. Their heads were green and bell shaped, and they were smaller than the palm of my hand.

Sloth didn't wait to see where the trap was coming from. Instead, she charged straight at the witch, her cape flapping behind her and a yo-yo in each hand. The witch lanced out a pair of metal sheers in Sloth's direction. Sloth threw a yo-yo at it, which knocked the attack off course. She ducked under the vine and kept running. A second pair of sheers came in at her, and she took a flying leap, striking the sheers with her second yo-yo when the witch tried to bring it up.

The smaller familiars lined up at my and Loki's feet, then melted into a vine that grabbed our legs. That was what I'd been waiting for, the answer to what grabbed us last time. That question answered, I drew my wand, extended the blue energy blade from its tip, then cut myself and Loki free before the vine could lift us off our feet.

Fluttering down from above the witch, Sloth had abandoned her yo-yos in favor of drawing a hilt engraved with alchemic designs. At the flick of a switch, a red blade of light extended from it, which Sloth used to bisect the witch straight down the middle.

Sloth landed lightly, extinguishing her blade and allowing her cloak to close around her. She tipped her head back to let the hood fall from her head as the two halves of the witch disintegrated. The labyrinth wavered and the barrier collapsed. I waved my wand in the direction of the falling Grief Seed, and it glowed briefly with a blue aura before flying to my hand.

Sloth, Loki, and I transformed back into our normal forms as I put the Grief Seed in my shoulder bag. A quick check of Sloth's Soul Gen indicated she was still a little more than half full after the magic she'd used in the battle.

"You know, I think I'm starting to get the hang of this," said Sloth, smiling. "So, who wants lunch?"

* * *

Our party sat down in a booth at a fast food restaurant. It was a style of cooking neither Sloth nor I had tried yet. Kyubey happily ate fries offered from Sloth's plate while the three of us who were visible to normal humans ate hamburgers. In Loki's case, we didn't bother with the bun.

"So, Kyubey," asked Sloth telepathically while we ate, "how long have you been doing this? Granting girls wishes and helping them fight witches."

"Let me see if I can put it in terms that will make sense," replied Kyubey. "When the humans of this world were still living in caves, I was there to offer a contract."

"And you've stuck with it all this time," I marveled. "It's good to know immortality doesn't necessarily lead to callousness or cruelty."

"All that experience with witches certainly explains how you keep avoiding getting hurt in the labyrinths we've been in," noted Sloth, feeding him another fry.

"What did you do before you started offering contracts to magical girls?" I asked.

"It wasn't very exciting," said Kyubey. "I'm much more interested in what you did before coming to this world."

"Well, Sloth's given you the quick version of her story," I replied, taking a bite out of my burger. "We've been together for a long time now, exploring worlds and fighting evil. Before we teamed up, I was in the military, using my knowledge of alchemy to help a displaced people called the Ishbalans rebuild. Before that, I was in a cult led by a charlatan priest named Cornello."

"And in all the worlds you've traveled, this is the first one you've encountered witches and magical girls?" asked Kyubey.

"We spent seven years in the last world, mostly inside a magical fortress," said Sloth. "Before I was old enough, I wouldn't be a candidate right?"

"That's true," said Kyubey.

"So, can we finally go drop off these clothes?" asked Sloth as she stood up with her tray in hand.

"Sounds good to me," I said. We deposited our trash in the receptacles and headed back for the lab. "I have some potions I want to brew anyway."

"And I have some thoughts on a new weapon," said Sloth.

* * *

Back in the lab, I placed this new Grief Seed on a shelf next to the other one we had. The similarities and differences were fascinating. Both had the same overall shape, a black orb wrapped in an elaborate wire work cage about the size of a golf ball and a needle-like protrusion on one side with a raised symbol opposite it. The designs on the top were unique to each witch type, and the exact design around the orb differed likewise.

Once we collected a few more Grief Seeds, there were some experiments I wanted to run. There was still so much we didn't know about the situation. Even a basic analysis of the physical properties could provide useful information.

Sloth settled in at a workstation with a handful of red stones, a notebook, and some scrap metal. Curious as I was about what she was making, I resisted peeking at her work. I wasn't going to deny her the pleasure of showing off her creation at a time and place of her choosing.

Instead, I lit a few burners and placed cauldrons over them. The potions I wanted to brew were of differing complexity, but none of them were experimental and some of the same ingredients were used in more than one potion. If I was right, we were closer to Sloth's goal than she realized, and I wanted to have the potions ready when Sloth made her decision about whether to try my plan. I made sure to brew and bottle enough of each potion for each person Sloth intended to revive.

A couple hours later, when my potions were done, I found Sloth standing in the middle of the living room trying tricks with her yo-yo. I saw that the string extended back to the silver ring on her middle finger.

"It's pretty innocuous for a weapon, isn't it?" said Sloth when I walked over. "A sword or a gun would draw attention, but I could walk down the street with this out and no one would question it."

"Your powers have always been like that," I said. "Only people who really know what you're capable of would ever guess you were the most dangerous person in the room."

"Have you worked out how many red stones you'll need to match my strength when transformed?" asked Sloth as she wrapped the string of her yo-yo around her fingers and rocked the counterweight between the strings.

"That depends," I said. "Have I seen you go all out yet?"

Dropping her yo-yo and reeling it in, Sloth smiled and said, "Nope. I'm not really even sure how strong I am like that."

"If you're curious, we can find an out of the way place, maybe one outside the city, and put you through your paces. You know, see what you can really do."

"I think I'd like that," said Sloth. "It'd also be nice to know just how much each of my powers drain my Soul Gem."

"I can design some tests," I said. "It shouldn't be hard to check your performance and monitor your Soul Gem while we go."

"Do you think you can find a place tomorrow while I'm out hunting?"

"What?! That's a terrible idea," I said. "As much trouble as the witches are to fight, you want to go in without backup?"

"You're cute when you're getting all protective," teased Sloth. "Don't worry. I just don't see the point in dragging you along while I track down a witch. Once I actually find one, I'll give you a call and we can go into the labyrinth together like always."

"Okay, that does sound more reasonable," I said, placated. "Take Loki with you. No point wasting your powers fighting off normal humans wandering alone in the bad part of town."

"He's not exactly vicious looking," noted Sloth petting the dog and ruffling his floppy ears.

"No, but he is a decent sized dog," I said. "People dumb enough to try and start something with a lost little girl might think twice seeing a dog with her."

Sloth smirked. "You just don't want to deal with so many places not allowing dogs."

"There's no reason it can't be both," I said, defensively.

"He'll probably be happier wandering the streets with me anyway," said Sloth, laughing.

"I should change out the red stone in his collar," I said. "He's been transforming often enough lately that it'll probably burn out soon.

Taking a fresh red stone from my bag, I removed the dimly glowing one from Loki's collar, popped it in my mouth, and ate it. There wasn't much energy left in the stone, but no point being wasteful. I affixed the brightly glowing stone in place on Loki's collar. Then, while I was on my knees next to him, I playfully pushed him over and rubbed his belly.

"There's one more thing I wanted your help with," said Sloth, nervously. "Since my body's a remote operated puppet now, I'm a little worried about how I'll react to using a time turner. Will two instances of my Soul Gem interfere with one another's signal? What happens when two copies of my body are here, but just one Soul Gem? Will I just pick one? Will I bounce between randomly?"

"All good questions," I said, standing back up. "What do you need from me?"

"I need you to make sure the time loops get closed," said Sloth. "Okay, first a relatively safe and simple test. I'll put down my Soul Gem and use my time turner. That should send just my body back in time. We'll see what happens when I've got two bodies."

A blur appeared in the room. Sloth's features resolved, with the chain of her silver pocket watch wrapped around her waist. As soon as she was fully present, she collapsed like a puppet who's strings had been cut. The Sloth already in this time was still up and moving, seemingly unaffected by the arrival of her second body. I went to examine the body.

"It's dead," I reported. "No heart beat. No respiration. That's strange. The mark on the middle finger of your left hand is missing."

Looking at the red flamel painted on her fingernail, Sloth said, "Maybe it's some kind of indicator to show what body my Soul Gem's using. I'm going to try and switch bodies."

Sloth converted her Soul Gem from ring to egg form and held the crystal in the palm of her hand toward the corpse. That not doing anything, she set her Soul Gem on the floor and backed up until she was farther from it than the other body was.

"Try touching it to her while I'm here," suggested Sloth.

I picked up Sloth's Soul Gem and touched it to the body. The future body stirred and the present one collapsed. After verifying that she was now breathing okay and her pulse had returned, Sloth checked her left hand and saw the red flamel was painted on her middle finger.

"I'd call that a successful test," said Sloth, getting to her feet.

Loki whined at me in worry and confusion. I went to comfort him while Sloth carried her Soul Gem back to her other body. Unlike when I did it, Sloth's prospective didn't shift when she touched the Soul Gem to her other body. It did shift when she let go of the Soul Gem with it still in contact with her unconscious body.

"Okay," said Sloth. "I think I've got a handle on the process. We should probably urn the rest of these tests in the bedroom. I'm making Loki nervous, aren't I?"

"I think that'd be a good idea," I said.

With one last reassuring pat, I followed Sloth into the bedroom and closed the door. She'd carried in her future body and laid it in repose on the bed.

"I want to see if this transfer process is limited to my own body," said Sloth. "Can you transmute a corpse for me?"

"I think I can do that," I said with a smirk. The ingredients for a human body were cheap and plentiful. I retrieved them from the other parts of the lab, clapped, and touched the pile. Since I wasn't trying to bring the result to life, the Gate didn't appear, and I got exactly what I was going for.

The body I created was the same size as Sloth's current body, and shared her features. The distinguishing features were black hair instead of brown and purple eyes instead of blue. Setting her Soul Gem in the hands of this new body, Sloth's consciousness transferred just like it had between her other bodies.

"It looks like I can use any body that isn't already occupied," said Sloth. "That's good to know. It opens up options."

Sloth transferred back into her original body and set her Soul Gem on the night stand. She wrapped the chain of her silver pocket watch around her waist, turned the dial that manipulated the hidden time turner inside the watch, and vanished. I scooped up her Soul Gem and placed it in the hands of the body she'd sent back in time to revive her.

"Okay, one last test for the night," said Sloth. "We won't need the spare corpse for this. You can deconstruct it and put the ingredients away."

I did so, then asked, "What's our next experiment?"

"I'm going to come back in time with my Soul Gem this time," said Sloth, returning it to ring form and sliding it onto her middle finger. "We'll see the results of the same Soul Gem being in two places at once."

As we spoke, a second Sloth flickered into view and said, "Don't worry. It looks like our Soul Gems don't interfere with each other."

Looking at the ring on her own finger, the present Sloth said, "That's good. I was hoping it would work like that."

"You're also about to find out your body can't just be hijacked while you're using it," said the future Sloth.

Both put their Soul Gems down on a table and picked up one another's. Neither of them fell unconscious when the other touched her Soul Gem. They switched Soul Gems back and both Sloths converted their Soul Gems back to ring form.

"I think that's everything we can check here," said present Sloth. Her future self nodded. "Tomorrow we'll see about the next batch of tests."

* * *

Author's comments:  
What it actually means to have your soul outside your body is a bit abstract. Tests like these let them get a better intuitive grasp on the idea and what it means practically.


	3. Chapter 5: Dark Revelations

The Iron Sole Alchemist and Magical Girl Sloth (Chapter 5) Dark Revelations  
by Howlin  
(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to any of the universes, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Sloth, and Loki as my own creation. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

* * *

Sloth and I parted ways the next morning. She took Loki and Kyubey to hunt witches while I headed for the library. City maps and records were easy to access, and I'd identified an out of the way place for us to test Sloth's magic without risking bystanders. Once I had that done, I went back to the puzzle I'd been working on before I met Kyubey. Why was the night sky so bright in this universe?

Combining what I'd learned about astrophysics in previous universes with the observations of astronomers here, the results didn't add up. A lot of cosmology theories in this world suggested subtly different models of stellar evolution from those accepted in other universes to account for it, but the more I went over the data, the more I started to notice a pattern. Dividing the universe into spherical shells centered on earth, all the stars in a given shell fit the stellar formation models I'd brought with me. The trouble was, each shell suggested a universe of a different age by those models. It wasn't a smooth progression suggested by a different speed of light. It was more like, at various times in the history of the universe, someone had turned back the clock across the entire universe simultaneously.

I had no idea what could cause a phenomenon like that, and it was a little terrifying to contemplate anything operating on that scale. A Philosopher's Stone empowered by the lives of every human being on the planet couldn't reverse one year of the sun's fusion. The god I used to worship, even if he had actually existed, couldn't have done anything close to what was happening in this world.

While I stared into space trying to get my head around the concept, Sloth's call came in on the communication mirror. She'd found a new witch. I quickly packed up my notes, set the books on a cart for reshelving, and headed out to meet her.

Turning down an alley, I saw Sloth wearing the blue pleated skirt and white button down top she'd picked out the other day. She was holding her red Soul Gem with its decorative gold wire work out in the palm of her hand toward a multicolored disk of light on the alley wall. My brown, floppy eared dog Loki was at Sloth's side, staring at the spot on the wall Sloth was focused on, though he couldn't see the barrier. Kyubey sat on top of a nearby dumpster.

"Your Soul Gem looks darker than it did this morning," I commented as I approached.

"We had to take out half a dozen familiars before we found a witch," said Sloth. "They weren't worth calling you in, but the magic use adds up, I guess. Oh well, should be more than enough to take out this witch."

The four of us entered the barrier and immediately, I noticed something was wrong. Usually, the entrance resembles the point in the real world you entered, but apparently that was more a rule of thumb than an absolute rule. Our party was in a poorly lit hallway who's floor seemed to be made of chocolate, and the walls were tall piles of giant cookies and candies held upright by rows of surgical scissors large enough to act as structural support beams.

"Does it get weirder than this?" asked Sloth dubiously.

"I don't know," I said. The electric blue false eye in my right socket darted to and fro as I used its enchantments to look through the candies and cakes to see anything that might indicate the direction of the witch. Instead, I caught sight of a group of familiars headed our way.

A line of blue alchemic light ran up my body. As it passed, my skin turned dark grey as the carbon in my body was converted to the diamond hard armor of the Ultimate Shield. My right eyelid closed to protect my magic eye and my left eye turned black and red from its carbon hardening. I lacked both lips and hair in this form, and cold easily be mistaken for a demon.

Sloth and Loki each followed my lead and transformed. Sloth's body was enveloped in red light and she was instantly covered by her crimson cloak. She threw her head back and opened her cloak, revealing her golden circlet with her Soul Gem in the front, her black bodysuit, and a bright red yo-yo in each hand.

Loki's hackles rose, and blue light poured from beneath his fur. His collar, inscribed with a transmutation circle and with a red stone affixed, shone bright red light in response. The dog gained mass. Bright green scales covered his body. His thin tail grew larger and thicker until it was the length of his newly expanded body and heavy enough to crush bones when used as a bludgeon. Loki's collar disappeared beneath a thick golden mane as the glow died out.

The familiars rounded the corner. Their bodies were almost perfectly spherical. Large, purple elephant ears drooped down from the sides of their bodies. They had long, pink rat tails. The creatures were bipeds, each standing a little taller than me, but out massing Loki. Their large, awkward bodies and thin, stick like legs gave the impression of slow, unwieldy creatures. Once the three of them spotted us, we learned they were anything but.

These familiars had neither teeth nor claws, but as they rushed at us, their enormous masses moving with a frankly impossible level of acceleration, outdoing even Loki's pounces, and each familiar slammed into one of us like a speeding truck. I was uninjured, but slammed backward into a cookie twice my height, crumbling it. Loki was dazed and unbalanced from his hit, but nothing was broken.

Sloth's left arm hung limp at her side, seemingly dislocated. A hit like that should have shattered bones. Quantifying how much her durability increased when transformed would have to be among the tests we ran after this fight. Her ability to switch off her ability to feel pain would make that sort of testing doable.

It was our turn. Sloth sued her one good arm to throw her yo-yo straight at the familiar as it went to charge her again. Now able to anticipate its speed, Sloth used it to her advantage, as the head on hit with her yo-yo did damage appropriate to the combined speed of both and blasted all the way through the familiar's body, causing it to disintegrate into black smoke before it reached Sloth.

I drew my wand and extended my blue blade of alchemic light from its tip and used it to slice my opponent in half. Loki pounced on his when it paused to turn for another pass. Teeth and claws that could effortlessly sever human limbs tore into the familiar which bled chocolate cream filling before disintegrating like the others.

A ring of red light sprang from Sloth's injured shoulder and she flexed the limb experimentally to be sure she was healed when the ring vanished an instant later.

"We could be in trouble if we're searching the labyrinth randomly and have to fight more of those things," said Sloth. "How are those directions coming, Greed?"

"Not great," I admitted. "Following the weirdness just isn't going to work in this labyrinth."

With no real options, we picked a direction and started walking down the hall. A floating door led to a black void with a floor we couldn't tell was there until I stepped on it. Stoppered glass bottles filled with unknown substances were suspended in midair. I couldn't see any familiars in this area, but there were a dozen more doors floating in various places in this area.

Most of the doors led into candy hallways like we'd just left, but one door led to a bridge with red licorice railings illuminated by giant birthday candles the size of street lamps. Hoping the difference suggested someplace closer to the witch's lair, the four of us began crossing the bridge. Pills rained down from above, but they proved harmless.

A door at the end of the bridge led into a room full of white and pink cakes and gigantic hypodermic needles. There were two dozen familiars behind the door, which I explained to Sloth.

"Sounds like a great chance to use this," said Sloth with a smirk as she held up what looked like a large cigarette lighter with a modified flame alchemy array on one side. Sloth brought the lighter to her lips and drank a bit of the fluid inside. Then she put it to Kyubey's lips and had him do the same. I drank when it was offered to me, gave some to Loki, and handed the lighter back to Sloth.

Sloth opened the door and we stepped through. The familiars rushed us as a group. Sloth clicked the lighter, and everything was on fire. The familiars were incinerated almost instantly, but while the flames engulfed our bodies, they burned neither our bodies nor our clothes.

"You keep a fireproofing potion in there so you can carpet bomb an area with flame alchemy risk free," I said, impressed. "I presume there's a switch and a red stone inside you trigger with the same mechanism you use to get a spark?"

"Right as usual, Greed," said Sloth as the flames burnt out and left us with nothing but the smell of burnt sugar. "I probably should've brewed more potion, though. If we meet more familiars, that trick won't be an option."

"It should be fine," said Kyubey. "I think we're getting close to the witch."

"I don't know how you can tell," I said, looking around. Other than the blackened and burned area we were standing in, the landscape was pretty uniform, with large pink and white cakes and gigantic needles as far as the eye could see.

"Down here," said Kyubey, hopping into a crevasse between cakes.

Sloth, Loki, and I followed him, ending up in an area bordered by candies and cakes with a number of small tables set up. The tables were small, but stood on legs several stories high. One of the tables had a tea set on it and an equally tall pair of chairs. A pink rag doll was in one of the chairs.

"Well, this is definitely different from the rest of the landscape," conceded Sloth, "but where's the witch?"

"No sign of any more doors," I reported. "Also, this cake and candy is all real. My shoes haven't had any trouble with it since we got into this labyrinth."

As we looked around and talked, the rag doll opened its mouth and a creature far too large to fit inside it came out. It had a long, black, worm like body, huge eyes, a face apparently painted with white makeup, and a conical party hat for a nose. Like a murderous jack in the box, the creature emerged from the doll's mouth, opened a wide, sharp toothed maw of its own, and bit Sloth's head off before any of us could react.

Sloth's Soul Gem was in her crown, and that was now inside the witch's mouth. I sped at the witch, taking advantage of the fact that the ground was made of regular matter to accelerate my already superhuman speed by transmuting the ground with every step. I shattered two of the creature's giant teeth with a punch and burst through the hole in its mouth.

The eyes on Sloth's head were still moving as I snatched up the head, tucked it under my arm, and smashed through a couple teeth on the opposite side of its mouth to escape. The witch reared back, roaring with pain. Loki had leapt into its back in a hard to reach spot and was biting and clawing. Plopping Sloth's severed head onto her decapitated body, I was relieved to see a bit of red light and Sloth getting to her feet none the worse for wear.

"If you can hold it still, I can finish it off," I said.

"Right," said Sloth, summoning a yo-yo for each of her fingers.

All ten yo-yos launched at once as Sloth leaped into the air. An aura of red light burned around each yo-yo and they started snaking independently of one another and independent of their starting vector. Sloth landed on top of one of hte tables. The strings wound around the witch and around the legs of the tables. The thin legs of the tables shouldn't have been sturdy enough to hold the witch, but a red glow covering the tables and yo-yo strings suggested Sloth was reinforcing both with her magic.

Loki leapt off the witch at my signal, and I stomped my right foot. Processed sugar is composed of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Spikes made of ice and diamond impaled the witch in a hundred places. Seeing that the battle was over, Sloth picked up the tea cup that was on the table she was standing on and took a drink as the labyrinth collapsed.

All three of us resumed our normal forms and I fetched the Grief Seed. The tea cup didn't vanish when the labyrinth collapsed. Sloth finished drinking it and swirled the dregs absentmindedly.

"I do not see what Headless Nick found appealing about being decapitated," said Sloth. "Even with the pain turned off, that was disorienting and unpleasant. How's my future looking?"

I took the offered teacup and looked at the dregs. I paled slightly at what I saw. "Disaster," I said. "You are already entangled in an enemy's web, and it's too late to escape."

"What?" asked Sloth. "Let me see that." Sloth took the cup back. Staring hard at the pattern, she grew quiet and concerned.

"You both know that reading tea leaves is just a superstition right?" said Kyubey, cocking his head. "The patterns in a teacup are random. The only order to them is what your minds impose on them."

"Get out the foeglass, Greed," said Slolth, looking up from her tea cup.

I reached into my bag and pulled out a magic mirror. The spells laid on it caused it to show the enemies of its owner. The closer and clearer an enemy appeared in a foeglass, the closer the enemy was to you, both physically, and in terms of readiness to do you harm. Kyubey's face stared out of the foelglass as though pressed against it.

"It's not a cat and you shouldn't trust it," whispered Sloth, quoting the offhanded prophecy our divination professor had made on our first day of class. We'd thought that one referred to a different creature, and had been a misinterpretation.

"What are you up to?" I demanded, igniting my alchemic blade and pointing it at Kyubey.

"I'm confused," said Kyubey.

"You never told us the whole story," said Sloth. "If we hadn't been alchemists, we wouldn't have noticed you'd done anything to my soul, and you never would have told us. What else are you hiding?!"

"I'm not hiding anything," said Kyubey. "It's true, I haven't told you everything I know, but that's just because there's so much I know that you don't that it's just easier to wait for a specific question."

Keeping my blade pointed at him, I reached into my bag and pulled out a second dark detector. I brandished this new object, which resembled an antenna in the hand that didn't hold my glowing blue energy blade.

"This is called a secrecy sensor," I told Kyubey. "It vibrates in the presence of lies, concealments, and deceptions. Deliberate omissions count."

"I'm invisible to everyone but magical girls and candidates," Kyubey reminded me in the face of the vibrating device. "It's a passive effect I don't really turn on and off, but I'd guess that counts as a concealment for your sensor."

"That's a good point," conceded Sloth. Then she rushed past me, grabbed Kyubey, lifted him off his feet, and pinned him against a wall. "We do know potions work on you. Greed, veritasyrum!"

I shut down my blade, replaced my wand and dark detectors in my bag, and retrieved a labeled bottle containing a colorless, odorless liquid. With him pinned, I shook three drops of the most potent truth drug ever made into Kyubey's mouth.

"What are you planning for me?" asked Sloth.

"I'm going to harvest energy from you when you turn into a witch," replied Kyubey cheerfully.

"When I-?" began Sloth, her eyes widening in horror.

"Once your Soul Gem darkens all the way, it'll turn into a Grief Seed, and you'll become a witch," confirmed Kyubey. "This process releases a massive amount of energy, which my kind use to reverse the effects of entropy."

"Wait," I said. "You're the reason the night sky's brighter than it should be?"

"That's right," said Kyubey. "My species discovered that the energy released by emotions isn't bound by the laws of thermodynamics. The greatest energy release occurs in the state change from hope to despair. We created Soul Gems and Grief Seeds to harvest that energy."

"All the witches we've been fighting used to be magical girls," reasoned Sloth.

"Or the results of familiars maturing into duplicates of their original witch," replied Kyubey, showing no signs of distress. "It should have been obvious familiars maturing into witches wasn't the only place they came from. If it were, all witches would be exactly the same."

"Why me?" asked Sloth. "Everyone on earth has emotions. Why was I a candidate?"

"The details are a little complicated," said Kyubey. "Emotional potential is only half of the equation for determining how powerful a magical girl will be, and thus, how much energy we can collect. The other half is your karmic destiny, or in simpler terms, how many other people your life will effect. A queen usually has a greater karmic destiny than an ordinary schoolgirl, for example."

"That can't account for energy on the scales you're talking about," I said.

"We don't really know how it's possible ourselves," said Kyubey, "but the energy released from the transformation of even the weakest magical girl into a witch adds years to the life of the universe. You should be happy you get the chance to help so many people."

"If it's such an honor, why don't you do it?" demanded Sloth.

"In my species, emotions are considered a mental disorder," explained Kyubey. "It's extremely rare for one of us to be usable in this process. That's why we came to this world and contracted with humans. In exchange for one wish, we're able to harvest the energy we need to keep the universe alive. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement. You got your miracle, didn't you?"

"If that's your goal, why tell us about purifying Soul Gems using Grief Seeds?" I asked. "Why have magical girls hunt witches if the whole point is to make more witches?"

"The witches themselves are a byproduct of our activities, not the goal itself," said Kyubey. "By hunting witches, magical girls clean up the waste product and ensure the safety of ordinary humans. A world overrun by witches would be useless to us."

"But you don't get your energy if I don't turn," said Sloth. "I've already got three Grief Seeds. I can get as many as I need."

"In the long term, it is the fate of every magical girl to become a witch as long as her Soul Gem doesn't break first," said Kyubey. "Plenty of magical girls survive for years, but that isn't really a concern for us. In fact, it's a good thing. The longer you survive and use your magic, the better."

"Why?" I asked, suspiciously.

"Magic is something that is impossible by definition," explained Kyubey. "Every use of magic, whether to grant a wish or to accomplish anything else creates distortions. The nature of these distortions is this. For every bit of hope you bring as a magical girl, an equal level of despair will be sewn by your witch. And the more powerful the witch, the more energy we can get."

"Does that mean every person I save with my powers means one person I'll kill as a witch?" asked Sloth, horrified. "That the only way to come out ahead is to bring back the people I want to save, then break my Soul Gem?"

"You're not doing that," I said, adamantly.

"I'm not going to go back to being a tool. A weapon," said Sloth. "And you won't do this to anyone else ever again!"

Sloth crushed Kyubey's throat and dropped the corpse to the ground. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"Here," I said. "Use the Grief Seed we just got."

"What am I actually doing?" asked Sloth as she touched the Grief Seed to her Soul Gem and watched the darkness flow out, restoring her Soul Gem's brilliant red glow. "Do you think she's still conscious in there? Am I increasing her suffering by filling her Grief Seed back up?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "Come on. Let's go back to the lab, grab the rest of our Grief Seeds, and head out to the place I found."

Loki put his head in Sloth's hand as she followed me mechanically. It was a lot to process, and though Loki had no idea what she was upset about, that she was upset was plain to see.

* * *

"I lost my temper," said Sloth. "He needed to die, but maybe we should've interrogated him more first."

"What's done is done," I said. "I don't see any point wasting magic resurrecting him for more questions just now. We got enough information to go on."

Sloth, Loki, and I were in an abandoned industrial area of the city. Closed factories and empty warehouses were the only buildings nearby. All of them were abandoned. I took out the potions I'd prepared.

"What are those for?" asked Sloth.

"The people you're going to bring back," I said. "These potions will put them to sleep and shrink them down for safer, easier transport through the Gate."

"I thought you wanted to do them all in one batch," said Sloth. There was a bit more life in her voice as she asked the question. "We don't have enough Grief Seeds. I'll witch out before we finish."

"Not if I'm right about this," I said with an arrogant smirk that finally elicited a smile from Sloth. "I want you to resurrect people and purify your Soul Gem until we have a filled Grief Seed."

Sloth did as I instructed, reviving one of her former victims, which, as before, nearly depleted her magic. She cleansed her Soul Gem with the Grief Seed she'd used earlier while I gave the man she brought back to life the potion. Now in an enchanted sleep and the size of my thumb, I put him in a small box and put that box in my shoulder bag.

"This Grief Seed's full," said Sloth.

"No, it isn't," I said. "Bring back one more person and I'll show you my plan."

"Alright, Greed. I trust you."

After placing the second sleeping man into my bag, I took out a second Grief Seed and said, "Kyubey said if it absorbs any more grief, the witch will revive. Let it. Dump as much grief as you can into the Grief Seed and revive the witch. Once it's back, you can top off with this Grief Seed."

"You'd better be going somewhere with this," said Sloth as she did as I asked. Her Soul Gem didn't brighten much before the Grief Seed reached its limit and reacted.

Black energy surged from the Grief Seed and we were pulled into a newly formed labyrinth. I tossed Sloth the Grief Seed I was holding and she used it to top off her magic. The three of us were in the center of the labyrinth we'd just beaten, with its cake and candy architecture and its too tall tables and chairs. As we continued to watch, the Grief Seed rose into the air and was wrapped in black light, vanishing to be replaced by the pink rag doll we now knew hid the witch's true form.

"Okay, are you ready to take this thing down in round two?" I asked.

Sighing, Sloth transformed then laid a web around the witch with her yo-yo strings. When its monstrous worm form emerged from the plushie's mouth, it was immediately ensnared. I stomped and impaled it with transmuted spikes again, and the labyrinth dissolved. I caught the descending Grief Seed and held it out to Sloth with a look of triumph on my face.

"It's empty again," I said. "The grief it absorbed was used up constructing the labyrinth and recreating its body. An easy fight against a witch who's tricks we already know every so often, and you'll never have to worry about draining yourself completely and becoming a witch."

Sloth's arms were around my neck and tears of relief were soaking my shoulder. I put my arms around her and sat down on the ground. She sobbed for a few minutes before composing herself enough to speak.

"Thank you, Greed. I was so scared."

"Are you ready to finish bringing them back?" I asked.

Sloth nodded and we got to work. Three times each, we revived and defeated the rosebush witch and the candy witch, resurrecting a dozen of Sloth's former victims as we went. Then, something went wrong with my plan. The candy witch was defeated again, but no Grief Seed appeared.

"What happened?" asked Sloth.

"Witches don't always drop Grief Seeds," explained Kyubey.

The two of us turned to look and there he was. Seated on top of a graffiti covered bench, Kyubey didn't so much as have his white fur mussed.

"I killed you," said Sloth.

"You destroyed one of my bodies," acknowledged Kyubey. "I have many spares."

"You don't seem upset," I noted warily.

"I already told you, if we had the ability to get upset like that, we wouldn't need humans. I would prefer if you didn't break any more. They can be replaced quite easily, but it's wasteful."

"If you didn't want to get broken again, why did you come here?" asked Sloth, a yo-yo materializing in her hand.

"A magical girl had a question about witches and Grief Seeds," replied Kyubey. "I did explain answering those questions was one of my duties."

"Just answering them in misleading ways, leaving out information you know we'd consider important," spat Sloth.

"I'll give you a chance to do something useful," I told Kyubey. "Why do witches sometimes not drop Grief Seeds after a battle? What makes the difference?"

"Sometimes the attack that kills with witch destroys the Grief Seed," said Kyubey.

"Of course," I said. "I should've thought of that. Next time we go in, I'll use the Mad Eye and look inside the witch's body so we can avoid hitting the Grief Seed."

"This is a clever idea," said Kyubey. "Most magical girls never get the idea of using the same witch more than once. In terms of resource utilization, it's very efficient."

"But you're not wasteful, are you, Kyubey?" said Sloth. "What do you do with the filled Grief Seeds magical girls give you?"

"Sometimes a magical girl completely depopulates an area of witches," said Kyubey. "When that happens, the magical girls involved would eventually use up their magic and turn into witches themselves if we weren't able to re-seed the area."

"You want magical girls to turn into witches," I replied.

"In the long run, every magical girl becomes a witch," said Kyubey. "A skilled veteran who can keep a witch population under control is useful for when the opposite problem happens. It's actually very unusual for a newly contracted magical girl to take on a territory this witch infested alone and be of any real benefit.

"Of course, the most useful magical girls are the ones who recognize the benefits of maintaining a stable equilibrium and alternately breed or cull witches as appropriate."

"What are the least useful magical girls to you?" asked Sloth. "I think that's what I want to be."

"The least useful magical girls are the ones who break their Soul Gems," said Kyubey. "Almost anything else will benefit us one way or another."

"If you're serious about not wanting that body broken, now would be a good time to leave," I suggested.

Kyubey strolled off, and once he was out of earshot, Sloth said, "Okay, we need to clear the witches out of this area, not hand any Grief Seeds over to Kyubey, then see if we can find and break his Soul Gem."

"I'm on board," I said. "Yo want to do that before or after we finish off raising these people? The ones we've already done will keep just fine like this."

"No, we'll do it after," said Sloth. "They were the whole point of making this contract, and whatever happens with Kyubey, I'm going to finish that now."

The shadow witch's Grief Seed was used in our cycle of reviving and re-defeating witches alongside the rose bush witch's. My magic eye was able to locate the Grief Seeds within their respective bodies and ensure we didn't break the Grief Seed during our efforts. Finally, the last person was revived, shrunk, and stored, Sloth's Soul Gem was clean, and we had two empty Grief Seeds.

I kissed Sloth goodbye, confirmed my future self's arrival, then clapped my hands and disappeared into the Gate.

* * *

Author's comments:  
Now that they've learned some of the horrible truths about the situation they've gotten themselves into, our heroes have found their resolve, made their plans, and are ready to move forward.


	4. Chapter 6: Progress

The Iron Sole Alchemist and Magical Girl Sloth (Chapter 6) Progress  
by Howlin  
(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to any of the universes, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Sloth, and Loki as my own creation. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

* * *

Once I arrived in Liore, I used my time turner to synchronize with the day Edward and Alphonse Elirc were to arrive back in town. They were the foremost experts on the subject of soul attachment and I needed to know what they made of the one Grief Seed I'd brought with me, combined with what I knew about the magical girl system Sloth found herself trapped in.

"That's awful," said Al after I finished relating the whole story.

"She's paying the price for her wish," said Edward. "What she can do now makes the Philosopher's Stone look like a toy. There was bound to be a high price."

"Brother," said Al, astonishingly.

"She's paying the price," repeated Edward, "but we didn't give up at getting our bodies back to normal after we paid the price for trying to bring mom back. We'll do whatever we can to help her."

I put the Grief Seed on the table we were seated at and said, "I need to know if there's a way to safely extract Sloth's soul and consciousness from her Soul Gem and put her back into a homunculus body. If we can do that, preventing her from becoming a witch is pretty straightforward."

Noah, who'd been quietly listening while the explanations were coming in, took the Grief Seed and pressed it to her forehead. "There is a consciousness, but it's dormant," she said.

"Do you know who this used to be?" asked Alphonse.

I shook my head.

"Well, let's start with the simple solution," said Edward. He drew a blood seal on a piece of metal, clapped his hands, and touched the seal and the Grief Seed. No alchemic light flickered. "It figures it wouldn't be that easy."

"The soul itself must've been altered," said Alphonse. "We should try to get a better idea how the Grief Seed is put together."

Over the course of the next month, I worked with the Elric brothers analyzing the Grief Seed. We were able to determine it wasn't made of normal matter. Red stones and microscopes provided some insight, though a lot was left to speculation. The black orb at its core seemed to be the altered form of the soul itself. The alterations had a superficial similarity to how a horcrux worked, but the fact that the whole soul was effected meant known methods for repairing a soul from which horcruxes were made weren't applicable.

The rest of the Grief Seed's structure had a passing resemblance to solid state electronics when viewed under a microscope. There were what looked like complex alchemic diagrams layered around the structure that were only visible at the microscopic level, the purpose of which we could only begin to speculate. Small sections of those arrays were simple enough to verify the larger whole was using alchemic principles, and that the similarities weren't mere coincidence.

Arithmancy principles were also integrated into the design, though as with the alchemy elements, there was a level of complexity that was mind boggling. The one thing I could say for certain by the end of our analysis was that the beings who created this, and by extension Soul Gems, had an understanding of science that dwarfed any human beings I had ever encountered.

Still, despite many lingering questions about the object's construction, the mere fact that it was apparently technological in nature led me to believe the principles it operated under could be unraveled and understood. I'd seen stranger and more terrible things inside the Gate. That prospective sustained me as I once again prepared to leave this world.

* * *

I returned to Sloth's side in the abandoned industrial area we'd been working in.

"Everyone made it to the other side okay," I told her when my past self departed.

Sloth looked at me closely and asked, "How long have you been gone?"

"About a month," I said. "I asked for some help analyzing the Grief Seed while I was there. No luck finding a way to reverse the process, but we did manage to get a sense of what Kyubey knows, scientifically speaking."

"Apparently more than we do if you didn't have any luck finding a fix," reasoned Sloth.

"Soul Gems and Grief Seeds are more sophisticated and complex than anything I've seen outside the Gate," I admitted.

"So, are you ready to go hunt down the rest of the witches in this area?" asked Sloth.

"No," I said. "There are some more tests I want to run."

"They'll multiply if we wait too long," noted Sloth.

"Even so, we need a better understanding of your magic and what it can do," I said. "When you transform, your Soul Gem isn't in a place you can see it, so we'll need to map out how much magic your powers use so you can keep track in combat."

We started small, with Sloth summoning her weapon repeatedly and transforming back and forth. We tested Sloth's strength and speed in her untransformed state, and then ran the same tests with her transformed. When transformed, there turned out to be no hard upper limit to her strength and speed. The more she pushed herself, the faster her magic drained, but if she were inclined to dump all her power in a short burst, she could do more damage with one punch than a nuclear weapon.

When her magic was actively reinforcing her, a fiery crimson aura enveloped her body. Some experimentation revealed it could repel objects and with enough magic, defend against attacks. She also proved capable of firing bolts of this energy aura from her fingertips as damaging projectiles once she started playing around with it. As an attack, it was far less energy efficient than her yo-yos, but it was good to know she could do it.

It seemed to both of us we'd barely scratched the surface of what she could do, but as the sun set, Sloth insisted we go out hunting. She wanted us to scour the city all night and wipe out every witch and familiar preying on people. As Loki still needed sleep, we dropped him off in the lab before heading out.

* * *

"This barrier was made by a familiar," said Sloth as we reached the end of the first trail her Soul Gem picked up that night.

"No point going in, then," I said. "Without a Grief Seed to worry about destroying, and with the barrier constituting a pocket dimension who's contents will vanish if no living creature is holding them when the barrier collapses, I can do this."

I clapped my hands and grabbed a rung from a fire escape ladder. Blue light enveloped it as it turned into a ball with a transmutation circle engraved on it. I stuck my hand into the barrier, circulating energy through the array, and dropped the metal ball inside the barrier. A second later, the barrier vanished.

"What did you do?" asked Sloth.

"I transmuted the metal ball into densely packed plutonium," I said.

"You're nuking familiars?" asked Sloth incredulously.

"They're in a pocket dimension," I said. "It's probably the only completely safe place to set them off."

"It just seems like overkill," said Sloth.

"The way I see it, overkill only matters when you're worried about wasting resources, and this is way more efficient than going inside to fight them, or when you're worried about collateral damage, to which I say again: 'pocket dimension'."

"You just want to prove you can transmute nukes," accused Sloth playfully.

"After all that time we spent developing them," I admitted, "it is nice to be able to get a non-horrible use out of them."

All of the familiars we found met the same fate as we systematically searched the city. Three clones of witches we'd fought before went down easily and yielded Grief Seeds for our collection. It was nearly daybreak when we approached the barrier of a witch we hadn't fought before. Sloth and I transformed and stepped inside with our weapons at the ready.

This was one of the stranger barriers I'd been in. Sloth and I were both floating as though we were underwater. There was no normal air in here, so the blue blade of light extending from my wand tip went out like a flame starved of oxygen. I felt a psychic assault attempting to breach my occlumency barriers as I took in our surroundings.

Distant walls seemed to be papered in paintings of moving carousel horses. Television screens displaying static hovered just off the walls. The ceiling and floor were only barely visible in the distance. A group of familiars approached us. They resembled wooden dummies artists used to reference for posture. They were winged and their faces had stationary expressions that seemed to be always facing me no matter how they moved. Each familiar was less than a foot tall.

With my own body my only source of conventional matter, I decided to attempt a technique used by the former homunculus Lust. The first technique I'd ever witnessed a homunculus use, I only learned years later that it was called the Ultimate Spear. I pointed at one of the familiars and used my shape shifting powers to make that finger ten feet long and pointed, impaling the familiar too fast for the eye to see. Then, just as quickly, I returned my finger to its previous form.

The familiar I'd impaled dissolved, and the television screens displayed what at first seemed to be an instant replay of the attack, before I realized they had shown the attack an instant before it actually happened. The screens were displaying what the witch could pull from our minds.

Sloth smashed a few familiars with her yo-yo as we looked around searching for either the main witch or a way to travel deeper into the labyrinth. One of the familiars grabbed hold of my foot, and suddenly, I wasn't made of normal matter either. I could neither shape shift nor transmute myself. Tugging on where it had gripped my foot, my body was stretched like taffy and I was helpless to do anything about it. I couldn't even move my muscles.

Realizing I was in trouble, Sloth attacked the familiar grabbing me. Once I was released, I snapped back to my proper shape and turned back into normal matter. Now fully aware of the threat the familiars posed, Sloth and I destroyed them quickly her with her yo-yos and me with the Ultimate Spear.

When the familiars were destroyed, a winged television laughed as it descended from above. Sloth flared her aura and used the crimson light to propel herself toward the new threat. Looking inside its body with the Mad Eye, I called out, "That's the witch! The Grief Seed is near the back! Focus your attacks on the screen!"

"Right," said Sloth as she threw two rapidly spinning red yo-yos at the witch. The screen cracked and rainbow colored blood spurted out. It released more familiars from the part of its screen that wasn't yet cracked. I impaled them with my Ultimate Spear as quickly as it produced them so Sloth could focus on the witch itself.

Sloth clapped her hands together and the strings of her two yo-yos twisted together. When the red disks crashed into one another, instead of deflecting off, they merged together in a burst of crimson light, now a single yo-yo the size of Sloth's head. Swinging the massive weapon like a flail, the impact struck the witch, shattering its screen and causing it to bleed black instead of rainbow. The wings stopped moving, and the labyrinth collapsed, leaving us a new Grief Seed.

"Where did you even get the idea you could do that?" I asked as I collected the Grief Seed.

"I don't know," said Sloth. "It's kind of like an instinct."

"Well, it used up more magic, but it's a nice finishing move," I said.

"I'll bet I can make them even bigger," said Sloth.

"Probably for more magic cost," I agreed.

* * *

When the sun came up, I insisted we go pick up Loki. Once he was fed and watered, he joined us on our patrol. Sloth led us with purpose. I nuked a dozen more familiars and we took down five more witches that were clones of the one we'd faced before.

The barrier of the next new witch saw us standing on clotheslines made of spider web in an endless sky. Familiars composed of the lower bodies of girls wearing ice skates skated along the wen lines and tried to kick at us with those blades. Everything in this barrier was made of normal matter, so rather than try to balance on the lines, I used the arrays on my shoes to provide Sloth, Loki, and I a platform of glowing blue transmuted air.

After the exotic attacks of the television witch's familiars, ice skates trying to cut us up made for a nice breather. The witch herself was a gigantic figure with no head, arms where its legs should be, and produced both spider web and familiars from under its skirt. It proved vulnerable to flame alchemy and went down easy.

For the next couple days, we continued our patrol, meeting only clones of the same witches until we'd successfully wiped out every witch and familiar in the city. With a very respectable stock of Grief Seeds in my shoulder bag for safe keeping, and no humans in any immediate danger, Sloth finally felt like she could take a break.

* * *

Author's comments:  
Things are going well for our heroes. The witches are becoming less of a threat as their experience fighting them and Sloth's understanding of her new powers grows. Everyone familiar with the source material can likely guess how long things can keep going in this direction.


	5. Chapter 8: A New Witch is Born

The Iron Sole Alchemist and Magical Girl Sloth (Chapter 8) A New Witch is Born  
by Howlin  
(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to any of the universes, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Sloth, and Loki as my own creation. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)

* * *

When Sloth and I woke the next morning, refreshed and optimistic, we washed up, then I sat down and braided her hair into her usual twin braids. Sloth picked out a new outfit from the shopping trip a few days ago, this time a line green sundress.

Sloth led the way to the local hospital, and Loki and I followed close behind. The avoid questions, Sloth took her invisibility cloak out of her bag and disappeared under it. I concealed myself and Loki under mine. Thanks to the Mad Eye, I could still see Sloth, and I followed her into the hospital and through the halls.

Sloth went room by room, stopping to read the medical charts as she went. Any time she found someone with an incurable disease or a crippling injury, Sloth converted her Soul Gem from ring form to egg form and cured the patient. Sloth and I both took advantage of the opportunity to get a feel for how much magic healing different things took.

When her Soul Gem had grown dark, we slipped out of the building and headed for the abandoned industrial part of town we'd chosen to fight revived witches. There was a half full Grief Seed we expected to reach its limit after this use in our inventory.

Kyubey was waiting for us. In response to Sloth's and my body language growing tense, Loki looked around for the threat, but he had no way of detecting the creature. Kyubey hopped down off the bus stop roof he was perched on and casually strolled up to us.

"It isn't a good idea to let your Soul Gem get that dark," said Kyubey. "It leaves you very vulnerable."

Sloth grabbed the furry white creature, reached into her bag, and force fed him some veritasyrum. A cruel grin spread on Sloth's face.

"I'm glad to see you, Kyubey," said Sloth. "The next stage of our plan was to find out where you're keeing your Soul Gem so we can stop wasting our time destroying your spare bodies."

"Only magical girls have Soul Gems," said Kyubey cheerfully. "Incubators operate as a distributed consciousness. If you wanted to kill me, you'd have to destroy all my bodies, which would be impossible for you since they aren't all on earth."

Sloth and I looked at each other. That was disappointing. We'd need a new plan for dealing with Kyubey.

"I really don't understand why you want to kill me," said Kyubey. "I granted you an impossible miracle you never could have achieved on your own. You're contributing to the preservation of the universe, and you've been able to use your powers to rid this city of witches and protect the people here. None of that would be possible without the contract."

"And if it were just about me, I might even consider it a good deal," said Sloth. "All these powers and I can keep delaying the price indefinitely. But every witch I've fought either was originally a magical girl, or was a copy of a witch who was. This is as much about what you did to them as what you tried to do to me."

"Every one of the magical girls I contracted entered into it willingly. Each of them had a wish they decided of their own free will was worth it. We always give a choice and never force a magical girl to contract."

"How can you say they had a choice if they didn't know what they were agreeing to?" I demanded. "You didn't tell Sloth half of this until after it was too late to back out, and even that, we only got out of you by interrogating you with truth serum."

"Drugging me was actually unnecessary," said Kyubey. "I'm not allowed to lie."

"Lies of omission are still lies," said Sloth. "Leaving out details in such a way that your victim doesn't realize there are more questions to ask is one of the most effective forms of manipulation there is. After all, if you get caught, you can just play innocent and say, 'You never asked.'"

"Explaining all the details just isn't possible," said Kyubey. "Simplified explanations are required when dealing with concepts your species doesn't even have words to describe."

"You know the fact that magical girls turn into witches is important information, and that wasn't some incomprehensibly alien concept," I countered.

"Only because I was still simplifying it to make it easier for you to understand," argued Kyubey.

"You're not talking your way out of this," said Sloth. "If you won't die, then at least get off this planet."

"You don't understand what you're asking," said Kyubey. "If I weren't here to make contracts with magical girls, who would fight the witches?"

"We managed okay before Sloth contracted," I pointed out.

"Using skills and abilities the humans of this world don't have," said Kyubey. "And you only found the witch at all because of my experience. Without a Soul Gem, it's incredibly difficult to even find a witch."

"There are still magical girls around," said Sloth. "Without you recruiting new girls and reseeding depleted territories, the veterans can just move on to areas where they're needed and eventually wipe out all the witches."

"Assuming the magical girls win," said Kyubey, "what do you think will happen next? Eventually, the last magical girl will turn into a witch and there will be no one who can do anything to stop that witch. Familiars will break off and grow into more witches until there are no humans left to kill."

"You're the reason that would happen!" yelled Sloth. "If you'd never come to this world, it wouldn't need you!"

"The fact of the matter is, the current situation is stable," said Kyubey. "There's nothing you can do to change it, and even if you could, you'd only make things worse."

Sloth dropped Kyubey and took a halting step back from the creature. Her head was down and her eyes had the hollow, blank look of a person who'd just been attacked by dementors.

"I really believed I could be a hero," said Sloth in a low voice as tears welled up in her eyes. "I could fix all the horrible things my father forced me to do. I could save everyone from the witches. I could stop this."

"Sloth?" I said, concerned.

"I can't do anything to stop Kyubey," said Sloth, tears streaming down her cheeks. "If I stay alive, I'll turn into a witch and hurt and kill people until everything good I've done is canceled out. The only way to come out ahead is to die now."

Sloth converted her Soul Gem from ring form to egg form, reeled her hand back, and moved to smash it on the cement road.

"No!" I yelled and dove to intercept her. I just barely made it, cradling the Soul Gem in my palms as I lay on my stomach, my skin rapidly repairing itself from the scrapes I got in the process. The gold entwined crystal that was the core of Sloth's being was completely black. It wasn't that dark when we left the hospital.

A weak, ironic smile appeared on Sloth's lips and she said, "I couldn't even get that right."

Then her Soul Gem exploded in my hand. Darkness flew from the central crystal generating winds that blew Loki and I off our feet and slammed us hard into a wall alongside Sloth's limp and empty corpse. The gold wire encasing the crystal was nowhere to be seen, but silvery light formed in the vague shape of a Grief Seed around the crystal still expelling energy fast enough to keep Loki and I pinned to the wall.

The energies buffeting me were insignificant compared with the total I knew must be being released. This was the equivalent of waste heat from an impossibly efficient engine. It would have been a lot more impressive if it weren't for the fact that the most important person in the multiverse to me just fulfilled Trelawney's prophecy that she would fall to despair darker than death.

As the Grief Seed formed, so did Sloth's labyrinth. The world melted away around me, and when the wind stopped, the Grief Seed was nowhere to be seen. I was in a stone room with a high ceiling and wide columns. There was no light source, but the massive room was illuminated none the less. There were no shadows. A heavy set of double doors served as the only way in or out. A simple alchemy array on the door served as both decoration and lock.

This place was made of matter. The transmutation circle on the door was fully functional, as were the ones on my body and equipment. Loki and Sloth's empty body were in the room with me.

The room reminded me intensely of the Chamber of Secrets. More so when I spotted the witch. A massive serpent with shining black scales lay coiled in a large circle with its tail in its own mouth. A pair of bat like wings were folded at its sides. Purple, slitted eyes opened and focused on me.

"Hello, Sloth," I said, sadly.

Using her wings to add speed to her strike, her body launched toward me the instant she released her tail. I held out my hands to catch her jaws, but her mouth passed right through my hands as if they weren't there. She'd gotten her intangibility powers back, and she'd used them to sink her massive fangs into my flesh.

"We'll fix this," I promised as I felt the venom she injected into my body begin to liquefy my internal organs.

Loki transformed and tried to bite Sloth's tail to make her let me go, but his jaws passed harmlessly through her body. Small blessing it was, she didn't seem to have enough control to use her intangibility offensively. When she was back to normal, I didn't want her carrying the guilt of killing Loki again. She did swipe at him with her tail, slamming him hard against one of the columns, but Loki was built to take way worse punishment than that.

I used the transmutation circle on my back to slightly alter the composition of the outer layer of my skin several times a second. That had proven an effective counter to Sloth's intangibility in the past. This time, it had no effect whatsoever. Despite its superficial similarity to her old powers, these proved to operate under a different principle altogether.

She lifted me off my feet and tossed me in the air. Her maw was opened wide beneath me. I used the arrays on my shoes to solidify a disk of air under me so I wouldn't fall. She sprang up toward me. I leapt aside rather than risk her passing through the glowing blue disk of light that had been supporting me.

Loki ran up to me and whimpered when I landed on the ground, my body fully regenerated. He didn't know what to do. I signaled him to fetch and protect Sloth's body. It would give him something to do, keep him out of the way, and ensure we didn't lose what Sloth had on her when the labyrinth collapsed.

Now, I just needed to beat the giant serpent that circled in the air overhead that couldn't be touched unless she wanted to be. In our first battle, I'd relied on the fact that she needed to touch the ground in order to trap her in a pit. Now, her wings had to touch the air to keep her aloft. A flame alchemy array drew itself on the back of my hand and I snapped my fingers.

The plan had been to burn her wings off and ground her. Instead, she suffered no damage whatsoever as she passed through the flames. She dove at me from overhead and I dodged aside, transmuting a bed of spikes where I'd been standing in the vain hope she'd have trouble with the timing.

She passed through the floor. Before her tail passed into the ground, I clapped and reached out, attempting to deconstruct it directly. Unfortunately, while everything else here was made of normal matter, her body wasn't.

The Mad Eye let me see her when she flew up at me from below, and I dodged again. I briefly considered ending this by attacking the Grief Seed inside her body, but rejected it. I wasn't going to destroy what was left of her. A risky plan formulated in my mind.

I removed the Mad Eye from my socket and put it in my bag, then tossed the bag aside. While we were both inside her labyrinth, I could see her without it.

"Don't worry," I said as I stopped dodging. "I don't care what Kyubey says. I'll stop you right here and now, before you can kill anyone."

She bit down on my midsection injecting more venom, then swallowed me. If I were human, I'd already be long dead, but as I wasn't human, I remained alive and conscious as I was being digested. To keep me inside her stomach, compressed and bathed in acid, she needed to remain tangible to me.

I clapped my hands. The human body is composed of water, hydrocarbons, trace amounts of metals, basically everything you need to make a bomb. Taking advantage of that fact was the specialty of the Crimson Alchemist, Zolf J. Kimbley. A homunculus has the same body composition as a human being. I transmuted myself and immediately exploded.

As I regenerated back to life, I retrieved my bag and reinserted the Mad Eye. Sloth's serpentine body had been blasted in half and dissolved. The labyrinth collapsed and I caught the descending Grief Seed.

Loki had carried Sloth's body safely out of the labyrinth. Kyubey had stayed far enough away when the labyrinth formed that he hadn't been caught up in it, and was waiting when I emerged.

"You set her right," I ordered Kyubey, holding out Sloth's Grief Seed. "Turn it back into a normal soul. Turn it back into a Soul Gem. I don't care, but fix her, or I will make you regret it."

"What you're asking for is impossible," said Kyubey, swishing his tail lazily.

"Then make it a wish," I said. "You can grant any miracle, no matter how impossible, right? I wish Sloth was normal and back in her body again along with her consciousness."

"You aren't a magical girl candidate," said Kyubey. "If you were, you'd be able to see me without that eye."

"Grant my wish, Incubator!" I yelled at him.

"As I said, you aren't a magical girl candidate. Really, there's no further point conversing with you at all." He started to walk away.

"So, you either can't or won't help me," I said, hatred seething in my voice. I took Sloth's things off her body and stuffed them in my bag along with her Grief Seed. "Then I'll find someone who can and will."

Kyubey turned back as I clapped my hands. An alchemic array drew itself in the air above me and Loki. It passed down over us, and the two of us entered the Gate, leaving Kyubey and his universe behind. Kyubey couldn't follow.

With the Truth flooding my mind, I knew the Incubators had never attempted human transmutation. Originally attempted out of grief and loss, emotions the Incubators could neither experience nor understand, they never had and never would see the need. That was why, for all their knowledge, they lacked the theoretical underpinning to make use of the array I used to travel between worlds.

Protecting myself and my dog from the Gate Children, I navigated us to a new world. There, someone could help.

* * *

Author's comments:  
Kyubey has won. He was able to take advantage of the feelings of guilt and remorse Sloth had to trick her into a contract, and nudged her toward the inevitable fate of all magical girls. He got the energy he wanted, and suffered no meaningful harm. But he has made an enemy in the process. With his access to the multiverse, that Greed can find someone to restore Sloth is all but guaranteed, and no one worthy of the name Greed will forget someone who took something so precious away from him.


End file.
